Justice is blind
by Sirio J
Summary: Between 1991 and 1994, in Athens, four kids went missing. Years later, they're found and brought back to their lives and families, but no one knows what happened to them during those years. In 2005 one of the most dangerous criminals manages to escape The Fridge. In 2012, during the Chitauri invasion, a mysterious woman with a red blindfold and a sword join the Avengers in battle.
1. Prologue

**A/N: I want to apologize for my English and for every eventual grammar error, but English is not my first language, this story is kind of a challenge for me. However, feel free to let me notice my mistakes so that I can improve my English.**

 **I warn you that this story will probably see a slowburn StevexOC.**

 **Please enjoy and let me know what you think of it.**

 **Disclaimer: I don't own anything, only my OCs.**

 **PROLOGUE**

 _ **1992, Athens, Greece**_

 _It was the hottest day of that summer, the old ladies sat on the porches moving the fans back and forth in front of their faces, while looking at the shouting children that ran in the street, splashing water from the fountain. A tanned skinny girl was laughing and running completely soaked, ignoring her mother who was shouting for her to come home._

" _Coming!" She eventually heard her and shouted a goodbye to her friends, and started to run towards the older woman._

 _Before entering the house, the girl looked back; the sun was slowly settling down, she had been playing around nearly all day. Some other kids started to leave the street, called back from their parents. Everyone was getting ready for the festival. The summer festival was the main event in Athens, lots of tourists came from every part of Europe to participate, and the kids were always excited. The girls used to put on their best dresses and boys styled their hair neatly._

 _That year, Arianna's mother picked for her a lovely white and blue dress, in contrast with her dark features, matched with white flats and a blue flower pinned on her hair. She looked at herself in the mirror and made a pirouette, smiling at her reflection._

" _Come on Ari, we need to move or we'll be late." Her mom called for her._

 _The city was beautiful, Arianna couldn't stop herself from looking around her in amazement. It was full of lights, colours, and people, lots of people laughing and shouting and even singing. From where she was, she could barely see the amphitheatre getting full before the show. She pulled her hand away from her mother's, intended to go get a look at the theatre; she loved the ancient Greek tragedies that were usually represented during the festival, while her mother found them boring. She made her way into the crowd, careful not to step on anyone's feet, in order to not get her shoes dirty. But then someone came running towards her and she lost the balance, falling on her hands and knees, scratching them on the tarmac. Her eyes started to get filled with tears, but she blinked them back, not wanting to cry in front of all those people._

 _"Hey there kid, let me help you." A tall tanned man was looking at her with a warm smile while stretching out a hand. Arianna stretched her own hand and grabbed the man's one, who pulled her on her feet._

 _Twenty minutes later, somewhere in the crowd, a woman was screaming her daughter's name, begging for someone to help find her. A man came near her, trying to calm her down, saying he will help her find the kid, she just has to calm down and they will find her, he promised. Some other people joined them, splitting in the crowd looking for the little girl with the white and blue dress._

 _But that night, Arianna was nowhere to be found. Nor the day after, or the day after that. She had completely vanished._


	2. Chapter One

**CHAPTER ONE**

 **2012, New York**

It was just another regular, sunny day in New York. Streets teemed with people running to work and tourists wandering around. In a small café, seated beside the large window, a brunette girl was calmly sipping her coffee. It was her free day from work; she worked as a nurse in the pediatric department at New York Community Hospital. Everything felt quiet from the outside, or at least as quiet as New York could be, but the girl felt something was just not right, it was like a tingling in her nuke telling her something was going to happen. The tingling quickly became a sharp pain and she dropped her coffee, and ran her hands to her head, holding it tightly.

The waitress, alarmed, ran towards her and placed a hand on her shoulder in worry.

"Hey, are you alright? Miss?" she kept calling for the girl, but she just remained silent, head in her hands, greeting her teeth. The waitress pulled out of her and went grabbing her phone on the counter. She just started typing the numbers to call an ambulance, when hell broke loose.

Initially, it felt like an earthquake, everything shook, sending glasses and bottles flying on the ground. The brunette had fallen on the ground as well, still holding her head, that now was pounding, eyes shut in pain. She was concentrating, trying to calm the pain, and she was just about to try and stand up, when a long sharp screech pierced her head, sending her crumbling on the floor again.

People ran at the window and looked up, trying to catch what was happening. Right above Stark Tower, the sky tore open revealing a huge dark wormhole. Everyone was staring at it in bewilderment, scared and fascinated at the same time. But then, everyone was torn away from the state of amazement when _things_ started to come out of it, raining down on the city.

Meanwhile people started running out of the café on the street, the girl was still laying on the floor. She felt like her head was going to explode, due to all those noises. People's screams thumbed in her ears, along with the sound of their steps on the ground, their breaths and their pounding hearts, while the screech still echoed in the background. After a while, she started to concentrate on her own heartbeat, trying to let every other sound out. Slowly, the pain started to fade and let place to the initial tingling sensation in the back of the neck. She opened her eyes and rose up slowly, using the table as support to get up. Once on her feet, she tried to focus on what was happening on the outside, cocking her ears.

She heard people running and screaming in fear, crying; she ignored them and focused on the other sounds. Tyres screeching, horns, broken glass, a barking dog. She ignored them too. Then she heard a new sound, some kind of animal noise, completely unknown to her, and some kind of metallic sound, like people fighting in armors, and one that sounded like a shot. She focused on the nearest source of these sounds, analyzing it. It was walking on two feet, like a human, but its heartbeat was completely different from a human's one, a lot more weak and slow.

It started to walk closer to the bar, the sound of his footsteps more and more loud and clear. The girl quickly stood down, reached the closest table and hid underneath it. The thing was now standing next to the window, and the girl held her breath, scared that it might sense her through the glass. But after a moment, it began walking again, and she could breathe again.

 _What the hell are those things?_ She thought, and then she tried to concentrate on a small group of people talking some floors above her head. She managed to pick some strays of the conversation. Wormhole, things falling from the sky, aliens, Iron Man.

 _Really? An alien invasion? Am I in some sci-fi movie?_ It all sounded unreal.

" _Maybe you should get your ass out there and do something."_ She leaned her head back on the wall, trying to ignore the annoying man's voice.

" _You can't ignore me, sweetheart, I'm in your head. Actually, it's your own mind that's speaking to you with his voice."_ She growled. _"You can't just stay here without doing moving a finger, you know you can help."_

"How?" She asked loudly. "I'm not a superhero. Plus, Iron Man's already taking care of it."

A sarcastic laugh echoed in the room. _"Oh, yeah, because Iron Man's perfectly capable of containing an alien invasion."_

She scoffed. "SHIELD will be on it."

She heard him sigh and felt him seating beside her. She could feel his arm brushing against hers. _It's not real._

" _You're right, I'm not real. But you think I would've said something different? You think I would've just hidden here and done nothing?"_ she shook her head in response, biting her lip.

"I just… I'm tired, Greg. I told Fury I was done fighting, and I really mean it, I can't take it any longer. Not anymore." She took a deep breath. "Not without you."

He sighed again and moved closer that she could feel his breath brushing on her ear. _"I know, and I'm sorry, I really am. If I had a choice, I would've never left you, you know that, but now you need to move forward. You're not finished fighting, Aria. The world's not finished with you."_ She heard him stand up on his feet and take some steps from her. _"I know you'll choose to do the right thing."_

Arianna closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Damn Greg. She stood up quickly and reached her backpack that was laying abandoned on the ground. She could sense Greg smirking right behind her.

She opened the backpack and pulled out an old red scarf that she used to carry around for windy days, she put it on her eyes and tied it on the back of her head, so that now it was covering the upper half of her face.

" _Now you really look like a superhero. Who are you, scarf-girl?"_ she ignored him and reached back into the backpack, pulling out a long metallic cylinder. She weighed it in her hands, taking confidence with the object. It felt just natural to handle it.

" _You know, for someone who's done fighting, you look pretty well arranged."_

"Shut up, Greg." He laughed in response.

The girl took a deep breath and, holding tightly onto the staff, stepped out of the café. There was total chaos, it took her a moment to regain control of her sense, overwhelmed by a combination of loud noises and smell of dust and blood. She recomposed herself quickly, head clear and body on the alert.

She felt the air shift on her left and quickly raised the staff, stopping an attack from an alien. The contact with the creature's armor generated a loud metallic clang. Arianna ignored the disturbing noise and acted quickly, throwing a kick in its chest and hitting hard on his head with the staff. The alien fell unconsciously on the ground.

Arianna started walking down the street, following the sound of the main battle. It seemed to come from Stark Tower's direction. She started to jog towards it, careful not to step onto anything.

She felt the heat coming from behind her and crouched, dodging the shot. She didn't hesitate and ran towards the alien, dodging another shot at her side, and raised her staff, hitting hard the alien where he was holding the strange gun. It lost the grip on hit, but it didn't distract him and started to attack her. She managed to avoid most of the attacks, moving swiftly. She blocked a punch directed to her face with her right hand while, with the left, she raised the staff and knock him on the face, sending him stumbling back. She didn't let him the chance to recover and attacked him. She raised the staff again, this time she pressed a little button at the center, and two identical blades sprang out of each end of the staff. Arianna jumped, the double-bladed sword raised up, and with a fluid move cut off his head, landing on her knee.

She got back on walking towards Stark Tower, killing every alien that came in her path with few quick moves. They were extremely slow and clumsy compared to her.

A sudden explosion roared not far from the girl, forcing her to cover her ears in pain, deafened for a moment. She shook her head furiously, trying to regain control of her senses, and finally starting to run towards the source of the explosion. People were running past her, screaming both in pain and terror. Arianna had to stay extremely focused to not let the racket disrupt her.

"I need men in these buildings. There are people inside that can run into the line of fire. You take them through the basement or through the subway. You keep them off the streets. I need a perimeter as far as 39th." A man's voice echoed not more than twenty feet from her, giving orders. Arianna focused on the man's heartbeat, noticing how inhumanly fast it was racing.

"Why the hell should I take orders from you?" another man argued.

Arianna's head snapped in their direction, the moment after she was running towards the men. When she was a foot away from the first man, he started to turn around, but the girl had been quicker and had launched herself on him, striking him down. An energy blast hitting the spot where he was standing seconds before. Arianna hit her right elbow in the fall, sending a sharp pain through her arm. She ignored the pain and quickly came back on her feet, then turning to face the other two men standing there. Their hearts were pounding in fear, of her or the explosion she couldn't say.

"Do as he said."

One of them spoke, giving orders to the other. "I need men in those buildings, lead the people down and away from the streets. I need a perimeter as far back as 39th." They were policemen, she stated.

The other man nodded furiously and started jogging towards the building.

"Thank you." A deep voice from behind her. The man she just saved.

She faced him and gave him a small nod and a polite smile. "You're welcome."

In that moment, an alien came from her left, the man opened his mouth and moved a step forward, but she was again quicker and, with a swift move, stabbed him with her sword. She then turned around and started to make her way through the street, but he called for her.

"Wait!" She stopped, her back to him. "Who are you?"

She stayed in silence for some seconds, thinking, then answered simply. "An ally."

The Captain watched as she made her way through the battle since he lost sight of her figure.


	3. Chapter Two

**CHAPTER TWO**

 **1992, somewhere in Greece**

Arianna woke up slowly, her head pounding so hard she thought it was going to explode. She tried to open her eyes, but shut them immediately after, blinded by the light. After some minutes passed trying to calm the headache, she was finally able to open her eyes. She blinked several times, trying to adjust to the light, and slowly sat up, leaning her back on the wall.

She was in a small room, empty with the only exception of a small black bucket in a corner. The walls had been probably white once, but now the paint had faded revealing the bricks under it. The floor she was sitting on was filthy and the air smelled of sewer.

She closed her eyes again, trying to calm the nausea, then she reached a hand on the back of her head. There was blood, someone had hit her, that'd explain the headache and nausea.

Where was she? Who brought her there? She didn't remember how she ended up there, the last thing she remembered was the festival, and falling on the ground. At the memory, the girl looked at her knees and palms. They were scratched and covered in blood and dust, the wounds still hurt a little but the headache made her forget about them.

She wanted to scream, but found herself unable to do it. The only noise that came out from her mouth was a low groan.

Suddenly, a voice came from the wall behind her, making her head snap back, causing her sight to blur.

"Don't, even if you scream, no one can hear you. "

She blinked, trying to focus on the small breach between two bricks. A pair of green eyes was looking at her.

"I know, I tried. I think we are underground." He was speaking in a rural greek. He had a strong accent, but Arianna couldn't figure where he was from.

"My name's Greg. What's yours?" Arianna stayed in silence for several seconds until she found her voice again.

"Arianna." Wrinkles appeared around the boy's eyes. He was smiling at her.

"It's nice to meet you Arianna. Can I call you Aria?" she nodded in response. He smiled again.

They stayed like that for a while, looking at each other. She could see his eyes traveling along her figure with interest, as if he hadn't seen another person in a while. 

"How long have you been here?" she asked.

The boy, Greg, took a moment to think about it.

"I don't know, I'm not sure. A year, I think."

Arianna started to panic. Suddenly, she couldn't breathe, and her sight started to blur again. Her heart was pounding in her ears, covering Greg's voice calling for her. A year. He had been there for a year. And who knows what happened to him, had he been staying in the room all the time? Did they, whoever they were, do something to him during all that time? Were they going to do the same with her? She started to panic even more, imagining all sorts of scenarios of what could happen from now on.

She was never going to see her family again. Her friends. She was never going to go play around the fountain across the street. Or in the park, with her mom seated in the distance with her legs crossed and a book opened in front of her. She was never going to watch the plays at the festival. She was going to stay in that filthy and stinky room, alone, waiting for someone to hurt her, maybe even kill her.

Tears started to fall down her cheeks.

"Hey, Aria. Aria, please. I'm sorry. I didn't want to scare you. Please don't be mad at me." The boy was begging her.

Arianna shook her head, of course she wasn't mad at him, he didn't do anything. She was just scared.

When she calmed down a bit, he spoke again.

"How old are you?"

"Seven." He stared at her for a bit.

"You look older. I thought you were almost ten." Then he continued. "I'm twelve. Well, I think I am. You know the date?" he asked.

She was not sure, she knew it was the 7th of August when she was taken, but wasn't sure how much time had passed.

"August 7th, 1992." 

"This is the last day you remember right?" she nodded, and he seemed to think about it. "Well, I think you've been unconscious for about a day. So it must be August 8th."

Another moment of silence followed, and Arianna found herself moving closer to the hole. Greg took a step back, allowing her to see him properly. He wasn't really tall, but he was strong-built for someone his age. He was sickly pale, his skin covered here and there in freckles. He had a warm smile, with a small gap between the incisors. Red curly hair spread out from his head in every direction.

"You're not Greek." She eventually spoke.

"No. I'm from a little village near Munich, in Germany."

"But you can speak Greek." She said.

"He taught me." Arianna stiffed. He? Did he mean their capturer?

He saw her reaction and opened his mouth to say something, but she had already turned her back to the wall and leaned on the floor, eyes shut. She just wanted to fall asleep and when she woke up, she wanted to be in her bedroom, to find out that it was only a nightmare. She would've heard her mother calling for her to go have breakfast. She would've kissed his father's cheek and pinched her sister's arm as she passed by. Her mom would've put some fresh-baked cookies on the kitchen table. The chocolate and almonds ones, her favourites. Then her friends would've called for her from outside the porch, and she would've run out of the house, a cookie still in her mouth, while her mother shouted to not be late for dinner. She would've gone to the church with her friends and played some pranks to the priest and then stole some bread at the bakery for lunch. It was summer, so they probably would've gone to the pond, stripped out of their clothes, careful not to lay them on the mud, and played in the water until the sun started to set. Then she would've come back home for dinner, her mother would've scolded her for soiling the floor with mud and sent her to take a shower before dinner was ready.

Arianna finally calmed down and, with these thoughts, she fell asleep.

When she woke up, Arianna was confused not to see the light blue walls of her bedroom, but instead dirty white ones. She also noticed she was laying on the floor, and not in her bed. She was also covered in sweat, it was too hot in there, did she forget to open the window last night?

Then she remembered. Someone had taken her and brought her there. She was captive, probably underground, no one would hear her if she called for help.

It hadn't been a nightmare.

She looked around and stopped her gaze at the door. Of course there was a door, she had been so stupid. She sat up quickly, and her sight dimmed for the sudden move. She reached the door and went to grab the handle, noticing there wasn't one. She growled in frustration and let herself drop again on the floor.

There was a tray with food beside her. So someone had entered the room while she was sleeping. She shivered at the thought.

The girl moved closer to look at it, noticing just now how hungry she was. There was bread with cheese and water. She grabbed the bread and cheese and started eating it without even chewing it, then she pounced on the water, almost chocking.

When she finished, she looked through the breach on the wall but didn't see anyone. Greg must've been still asleep.

So she sat there and waited for him to wake up. But he didn't show up for hours, and Arianna deduced he was not in the room. So she kept waiting for him to come back, in vain. When she fell back asleep, he still wasn't back. She hoped he was all right.

When Greg finally showed up, the next day, he was extremely pale and covered in bruises. Arianna was still asleep when she heard the door in the next room open and quickly stood up to look in the hole. Her heart clenched at the sight of the boy.

"Greg." She breathed.

He groaned in response.

"Don't worry. I'm… I'm fine." He eventually managed to say.

He looked up at her, sadness in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Aria."

She looked at him in confusion but didn't have the time to speak that the door of her room opened. She turned around, pressing her back on the wall. A man was standing in the doorframe, smiling at her. He was tall, his skin was tanned and his black hair had some grey strands. She immediately recognized him, he was the man who helped her get up in the crowd. He took a step further.

"Come on Arianna, we have things to do." He reached out a hand, and she was too scared to know what he would do if she didn't do what he said, so she stepped closer and grabbed it, tears filling her eyes.

He smiled down at her and took her out of the room, closing the door behind them.

That's when the real nightmare began.

When she came back, she had no tears left to cry. She felt completely drained. Everything hurt, and she felt wet and sticky from her own blood. Her dress was now covered in red. Her sight was blurred from the blood loss, and her left eye was black and swollen. She never thought she could feel so much pain. She thought she must've done something bad, and now God was mad at her, that's why he was punishing her. She was in hell. The little girl could still feel the blade run through her skin.

She looked down at her stomach. A large blood stain where he had cut her open. She gagged at the sight.

She managed to drag herself near the breach in the wall and laid her back to the wall, closing her eyes and trying to control her breath. On the other side of the wall she didn't know if Greg was awake or not, but if he was, he didn't say anything.

So she just laid there, with a scream stuck in her throat, too tired to even open her mouth.


End file.
